Exxon Mobil Bets
On New Technology
In the Hunt for Oil

Afloat in a research vessel off the coast of West Africa in early 2002, Exxon Mobil Corp. geophysicist Len Srnka took his laptop, locked himself inside his cabin and peered into oil's future.

Since the 1970s when he'd studied the moon for NASA, Dr. Srnka had been fascinated by the prospect of using the electromagnetic properties of earth, water and rock to decipher underground terrain. He was hired by Exxon in the 1980s to apply the method to finding oil but was stymied for years by technological and funding hurdles....